Transportation Off The Grid

There are a variety of ways to have self-sustaining transportation when you are living off the grid.

#1. Walking, jogging, running. Great if you love exercising regularly.

#2. Cross Country Skiing. Good for in the winter.

#3. Bicycles. You will need to perform regular maintenance of your bicycle, thus brushing up on your bicycle mechanic skills is a must. You might even consider taking a bicycle mechanic training course.

#4. Boat - Sailboat or rowboat or canoe. Really only good if you have a large body of water or a river that is going in the direction you want to go.

#5. Horses - Nothing like equine power to get around in your local community! I personally love horses, it is my dream to one day have a horse breeding farm / ranch with a bed and breakfast.

#6. Dog sleds - Really for more Nordic regions. But totally doable if you love Huskies and dog-sledding.

Outside of these options you get into the realm of electricity powered and gasoline / diesel powered engines. Or hydrogen, but hydrogen cars are currently too expensive because they're mostly experimental models.

There are electricity powered bicycles, known as e-bikes, which produce more power and speed than a normal bicycle and look like a scooter.

Then next step up would be a diesel or gasoline powered scooter. (In which case, you aren't really "off the grid", are you???)

The next would be a diesel motorcycle. But be forewarned, diesel engines don't start very well in the winter.

Then diesel cars which can be modified to run on leftover cooking oil. And again, the problem of slow starts in the winter.

And lastly gasoline vehicles... In which case you're not really off the grid at all.

Thus it all goes back to bicycles. Simply the most energy efficient way to travel relatively short distances. The average cyclist goes about 19 kmph (12 mph).

Competitive cyclists can get over 32 kmph (20 mph), which is great if you live only 10 or 20 km from everyone or everything you need to visit.

For longer journeys (over 50 km) you may want to get a head start or resort to public transportation (buses, carpooling, subways, trains, planes, ferries, etc).

Admittedly, depending on your needs, you will sometimes need to compromise and use what is available.

Which brings up an interesting topic... In the TV series "Revolution", why aren't they using bicycles more? Horses and steam trains, yes, they are using those, but bicycles seem like a very easy solution.